Crossbows, Choice and Cherokee Roses
by SavingOphelia
Summary: A series of unconnected one shots and drabbles, of various AUs and headcanons, featuring everybody's favourite archer and his lady. / Caryl. Now taking requests! \
1. An Overflow of Angels

Crossbows, Choice And Cherokee Roses

A/N ~ Welcome, welcome, to my first (published) venture into the wonderful world of The Walking Dead! I've started various Caryl fics in the past, but judging by Super Jock and Awkward Girl's failed sequel, we all know I can't commit to full-length stories atm. But, Caryl has come to dominate my life and I've reached a point where I can't hold my feels in anymore. My pencil-sketch fanarts don't quite cut it anymore.

So these will be completely random, or based on headcanons and prompts I have, spanning various points in the TWD fandom or AUs, but feel free to review/PM me any requests or prompts you may have. I write to please. (Myself, most of the time.) R&R, children.

Worth Living For

[After Beth's death, Daryl begins acting out. The group elects Carol to talk to him, and once again, their shared suffering makes them stronger. Spoilers for 5x8. ]

"Daryl. Daryl, you eating with us?" Rick murmured, bending the lid on his salvaged can of tinned beans to use as a spoon. Hardly fine dining, Carol thought, but nobody was complaining. Nobody was doing much at all; not since. Since. There were a lot of sinces in this new world, and the latest was no easier to stomach than the first.

"Naw. I'm not that hungry." Daryl replied, and with a flourish of clipped words and white-knuckled fists, every syllable of it was thrown like an insult. When he left the room, the door crashed shut behind him, and in the wary silence of a death-strewn planet, the noise was cacophonous. It didn't make much of a difference, save to stir the heavy air of dust and dashed dreams. They were well outside of the city now, taking a night's refuge in an empty house beside the main road. Once they'd done what they had to do, they'd gotten out of the city as soon as they could. Nobody wanted to stay there, with her ghost hanging over them. For a little girl, Beth Greene cast a long shadow. (She was not the first.) They'd buried her in a small park on the fringes of the city. Lots of light, flowers. She would have liked it there.

The haphazard state of the cans stockpiled in the back cupboards of the house suggested it's former inhabitants left in a rush, if by choice at all. But at least they got to eat tonight. (Muffled by a roaring silence, a stifling sadness.) Except for Maggie, who hadn't said a word since they left the city, and had immediately shut herself away in the smaller of the bedrooms. And Daryl, apparantly, who had been understandably careless and callous since his tears had stopped. Grady was gone to them, but its ghosts were spilling out.

"Someone should see if he's alright." Sasha intoned quietly, eyes never leaving her tinned tomatoes.

"Of course he's not alright!" Glenn muttered, incredulous. "Beth died today." Carol was sure he'd tried several times to speak with his wife, but Maggie just wanted to be left alone. It was good of him to abide by her mourning wishes, as much as she could see it pained him. Maggie was the last Greene standing now.

"She was like a sister to him," Sasha replied.

"She was like a sister to all of us," Tyreese snapped.

"Carol." Rick sighed. Carol glanced up cautiously. "You go."

The house was a sprawling bungalow in truth, with a half-converted attic they hadn't yet checked. Musty courderoy couches, crouching low, an ancient TV and a crumbling rag-rug that screamed handmade with care - an old couple had probably lived here. Carol nodded wordlessly, though she wasn't sure this was the best idea. The loss of Beth, young, hopeful, happy Beth, who was so full of life she could barely hold it in, was like a grenade without a warning. You had barely enough time to recover from the shock of the sound before you were embedded with something; a memory, a connection, a wound, and you were still reeling in surprise while you were bleeding out hot, thick emotion. Daryl had been struck almost as hard as Maggie by the raw loss of the situation.

And Carol felt like nobody understood his grieving process.

This was how he worked. He broke, and he compensated by pretending he didn't care about anything else. All that did was prove he cared more, as far as she was concerned, but nobody else got that. That Daryl had to process things in his own way. Of course, she was too drained to argue, and she wanted to see how he was doing as much as she wanted to not die, so she set her battered can of soup on the dust-filmed coffee table, picked up an unopened one for him, and went to the hallway, trying a door on instinct. He was lying on the bed, and he didn't look up. "Hey," Carol tried, lingering in the doorway. The side of it was scratched. From a cat or a corpse, she didn't want to know.

After a second or a centuary, still staring at the ceiling, he asked, "You okay?" Daryl had caught her eye outside of Grady, once Beth's body had been deposited on the concrete for Maggie's final embrace, and it had meant the same sentiment. She'd just nodded. Everything ached, from the crash, from everything, but she'd had worse. Whatever they gave her - whatever Beth got her - at Grady, it had worked.

"Nine lives, right?" She closed the door behind her, placing the soup can on the bedside table and going to sit on the floor, against the foot of the wooden bedframe, awkwardly managing her fresh injuries. She masked the slowly-fading pain, for his benefit at least; something she'd learned to do long before the apocalypse. It was a single bed, meticulously made a very long time ago, pushed horizontally against the back wall, and it's offensive wallpaper. Small wooden set of drawers. Teddy bear sitting on top. Eerily undisturbed. Somewhere a grandchild might have slept, once in forever ago.

"Yeah." Daryl said. The yellowed lace curtains were open and frayed, pale evening light gushing in from scars in a teastained sky. A sallow rind of moon hung in the twilight glow. Somewhere, someone was happy. Carol wasn't sure what she believed in anymore, but she liked to have thought that Beth Greene had gone home tonight; gone home to Hershel, and the rest of them, and she'd never have to say goodbye again. If Beth was another angel for them, Carol hoped she'd found peace. The clock on the nightstand was broken. They didn't talk for a very long time, but silence was a comforting thing between the two of them. Finally, and she could almost hear the hurt as he inhaled, Daryl spoke again. "How'd you do it?"

"Do what?" Beneath their voices, the earth was deathly still.

"How'd you go on, after Sophia? How'd you make it stop hurting?" Sophia. The sound of her name never failed; ever the impact of a strong blow to the chest. She reminded herself to breathe, filling her lungs with stale air and arranging her memories back in the treasured, agonizing and rarely opened box that was her daughter.

"You don't." Carol didn't even think about thinking about what she said. For some reason, with Daryl, the inner tap turned on and the words streamed out, and she didn't have to staunch the flow, because he usually had his own torrent too. It was rare, and she was thankful, having a friend whose flawed bare soul didn't mind hers. It was all honesty. "Not really. You just... Make room for it." Silence. Daryl's teeth were clenched and Carol's head fell back to rest against the side of the matress. "And you know, I think of her every day. And I know it's never going to be alright, or the same, not without her. But I did all I could. You did all you could."

And it wasn't enough!" Daryl's voice was rising now. Grief was like a wave in the ocean; you had to let it crest before it could break. "I ain't never had no little sister, or daughter either, but..." He trailed off, sitting up on the bed, swinging his legs down beside Carol. "But I did! She was it!" He kicked the nightstand, hard enough for the drawer to crack, as he stood up. "And I couldn't save her!"

"Daryl, you did everything you could..." Carol steadied herself on the wooden frame at the end of the bed as she stood up, pain in the muscle of her legs and shoulders crying in protest.

"And it wasn't enough!" He repeated, a different kind of agony emblazoned across his face, turning to lean against the wall, smashing tightly-curled fists against it. "She was a little kid, Carol, felt like she was my responsibility, you know, and I let her die!" He turned around, hopelessly, looking to her as if she had all the answers. "I let her die, I fucking let her... It's all bullshit, bullshit! And Maggie ain't ever gonna look at me the same again. I just..." Daryl sighed, pained. "I don't wanna loose nobody else, Car, I don't wanna loose no one."

"I know," Carol nodded, swallowing the distant threat of tears, arms aching. "I know. I know, but sometimes that's the way things happen. And it kills, and the leftover humans are worse off, but you know what? When Sophia died, there was a moment when I lost all my hope. And I thought, I'm never gonna be happy again. I thought there was no point to anything, because my little girl was gone, forever, when she should have been living the most. Because I could protect her from her childish fears, and I could protect her from her own father, and I still couldn't save her. And maybe it's part of some cosmic plan, or maybe we're just programmed for pain, but I can't change what happened to her. And I'm still here. I'm learning how to live again. There are still things worth living for. I did my best. And Sophia would have never forgiven me if more than a part of me died with her. You know Beth would have kicked your ass for sittin' around and blaming yourself. It does't help anything."

Where did that come from? She'd never said any of that to anyone before. It was that inward tap Daryl inspired. She studied his expression, about a meter away, searching, looking for some response, any response and focusing on breathing through exhausted lungs. There were tears in his eyes. Without any kind of warning, he was hugging her fiercely, and she had to smile, despite the sudden, strident shock of protest from her injuries, because no matter how much he liked to act otherwise, Daryl Dixon's walls had turned to ash a good long while ago. She could feel his tears on her neck. "How'd you get to be so damn smart?"

"Well, I did finish school," Carol replied, blinking away the tears in her own eyes, and Daryl's breaking laugh cracked a smile across her face as well.

"Don't you ever die on me," He ordered.

A faint smile crossed her mind. For him, for friendship, for her daughter. For the memory of Beth Greene. "Nine lives, remember,"


	2. An Angelic Arrangement

**Crossbows, Choice and Cherokee Roses**

**A/N** ~ So, I've had a personal headcanon of Carol wearing the angel wing jacket for a long time. I just think it's adorable, and I physically could not resist writing something with it any longer. Yeah, so this is just fluff. As usual, big thank you to everyone who reviewed, followed, favourited or ghoststalked. I love you all. And yes, I will be writing some kissy kissy soon. I'm on it. Don't rush me. I don't think Heinz does pudding. Or any of the things I mention in this one shot. Sue me.

**An Angelic Arrangement**

[ _When Carol says she's cold, she becomes the first woman to wear his wings. Daryl doesn't want his jacket back until it smells like her. P_ost-5x8. ]

Daryl stared, awestruck, at the sign, rusting away in the pre-winter chill. They'd hit the jackpot this time. "What d'ya say? Call the others before we go bustin' in? Big factory like that, probably something's holin' up in there in."

"We can take a few walkers." Carol smiled, glancing at him through the glare of the crisp morning sun. It had been a while, since Grady. Nobody really wanted to keep track. Their brave and fearless leader had caught wind of some supposed safe zone a long way down the road. Daryl guessed they'd be headed there before the new winter really settled in. Maggie had offered to go on a run this morning, which was a step in the right direction, but they'd all agreed it wasn't safe, with her stability still rickety like it was. Lucky for Daryl; got to keep his mind off things, for a change. Carol went with him. No one disputed that or asked any questions - even them themselves. It's not in the nature of magnets to consider their attraction.

"I meant the livin'." Daryl clarified, squinting in the sudden onset strike of light, errupting over the hunchbacked branches of a sickly, tree-lined horizon. It definitely had promise; it was definitely a Heinz factory. The bulletholes in the sign were an honest cliche. The world had turned into some damned cable TV show.

"Right." Carol nodded, silent for a moment. "Doesn't look like anyone's been around here for a very long time. Sure you don't want to go investigate, for a minute or two?"

Daryl considered. Chances were they'd be a couple a biters in there, and a whole lot of durable food. The building slumped, greying and desolate, the carcass of some fat, industrial creature, across a grave of scraggly grass. She was right - damn woman was always right. As he exhaled, he could see his breath mist for a heartbeat and linger, silvery cool, before dissapitating. His fingers tightened on ths crossbow in his grip. "Lead the way, Sherlock."

Carol withdrew the knife from her belt before walking out across the yellow-green grass, uncut hair of unmarked graves, past the weathered sign. Every time Daryl scanned the area, nothing. (The silence of death, the stillness of ending.) Not until he came to Carol again, a flash of life, emblazoned against a landscape of loss. They circled the building a while before coming to a beat-up set of double doors - fire escape, most likely. "Ready?" Daryl braced himself against the door, lifting his crossbow to an average head level. It was strange. Destroying flesh-eating undead shells of corpses had become so damn easy now. Second nature. Instinct.

"Don't really have a choice," Carol joked, and they shoved through the doorway together. Tension plummeted and his heart relaxed in relief. Nothing. Not a single walker, nor a sign life had ever been here. The second after accepting the lack of walkers, he felt an inadvertant smile posess him. Storeroom. He very nearly cheered. "Wow."

"You're damn right, wow," Daryl agreed, dropping to his knees on the concrete carpet of the cavernous space, yanking open his bag and getting to work on the lower shelves. Beans, soup, tomatoes. They'd found a fucking 7-Eleven. "Put it here!" Carol high-fived the hand he offered, busting open one of the crates stacked high.

"Forget safe zones, we need to make camp here," Carol tossed him a can. He caught and stared at the label. Vegetable chicken soup. Just like mom used to steal. His eyes asked the question for him. "Said it was your favourite," she shrugged.

"When'd I say that?" Daryl frowned. It was true, though. It was also true that this woman seemed to know everything about him before he even knew himself, but he doubted that extended this far.

"Prison," Carol told him, not looking up from the crate as she unloaded the goods into her bag. "Not long before I... Left. Michonne got some soup on a supply run. You said this one's your favourite."

Huh. He couldn't recall telling her that; he'd told her so many things. And Michonne found soup on supply runs a lot. It was strange, thinking of the prison. Recollections of a better time. A long time ago, better meant not infested with cannibal corpses. Now it meant sunlight on crops and clean cellblocks, the bars of jail and the promise of sustainability. Soup and starlight from the window on her curly hair. Till that one-eyed bastard showed up. Who'd have thought such a shit ton of his fondest memories took place in a fucking prison block. "You remember that?"

"'Course I do." She busted another crate with her knife, and they worked in a comforting silence for a while. "We should start heading back before they get worried. We can tell Rick and the rest. They can come themselves if they wanna stock up."

"Bar the doors with somethin'." Daryl offered, glancing around, once they were outside. "Don't want any walkers gettin' in. Or no humans tryin' to claim it."

"Yeah," Carol hefted her pack and went to grab a twisted log, lying abandoned in the grass a few metres away. "Give me a hand with this?" Daryl lifted one end; he'd never been weak, not after a childhood of hunting for his next meal when his father was drunk dead or stoned, and fighting off any of Merle's dealers who got too rowdy, but the apocalypse had definitely build him up a bit. And as for Carol, well - he was still amazed, every time he thought of how far she'd come. Together, they dragged the thing, heavier than it looked, toward the door, wedged in closed. With any luck, whatever scant passers by happened to notice the godsend, they'd take that as a walker warning.

"You okay?" Daryl asked, dusting his hands off.

"I'm fine, just a bit cold," Carol, he noticed, hadn't found any winter coats yet. He was sure they'd stumble across one North Face store before the chill really kicked in, but for now, her jacket and shirt were thinner than they should have been. He'd found a jumper to fit a few days back. Didn't seem right. Without considering any alternatives, Daryl dropped his pack and crossbow on the ground, manouvering his jacket, wings weathered, off his shoulder. "What are you doing?" He grunted in response, taking the leather and going over to her, holding it up. "I don't need -"

"Well I ain't gonna let you be cold," Daryl muttered.

"Are you sure?" He cut her off with a look - she knew him well enough to know when he was being too stubborn to give in. "I can dress myself, Daryl." She smiled, glancing down as it dropped. "Thank you."

Nobody else had ever worn his jacket before; like hell he was ever going to let anybody else. It was too big on her, dwarfing her torso and shoulders. But it did look right. And she was warm. So he was happy. He gathered too late that he'd left it too long to reply, so he just nodded awkwardly, and picked up his pack and bow, following her back in the direction they'd come. The familiar wings emblazoned across her back put a slight smile on his face. He didn't question it.

-o-

"Hey, kid," Daryl tossed a can of pudding Carl's way. Underneath the sheriff's hat, his face broke into a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. Kid was growing into his hat.

"Thanks," Carl nodded, grabbing one of the plastic spoons Carol had thought to grab at a trashed off licence on the way back. It was funny, but actual spoons and unspoiled soup were the height of luxury these days - and it felt good. They'd built up bricks around the fire to conceal it from hungry walkers and humans alike. The warmth and the light and the food in his stomach made everything feel almost... Hell, he didn't know. Was just nicer than usual.

"Don't thank me," Daryl shrugged, scraping the bottom of the can. It was the can Carol had tossed him back at the factory. He'd forgotton how good it tasted. "Weren't me who found the place. Didn't bust in there by myself."

"Bust in where?" Carol wiped her hands off, coming to sit down beside him. Tyreese had taken over watch then, Daryl assumed, which meant it was later than he'd thought it was. She was still wearing the jacket. Daryl was still unsure of why he liked that. Nobody had mentioned it yet.

"Speak of the devil," Michonne smiled. "We were just saying. Thank you. Both of you."

"That was quite a find." Rick agreed. He was still unsmiling and unshaved, but he was getting closer on the first part. "Michonne, Glenn, Tyreese and I will go check out the rest of the place tomorrow." From the basket they'd found for her, Judith gave a cry. "Carl, will you get that?" Carl begrudgingly went to hold his sister.

"I want to come." Maggie's voice chilled in the night for the first time since Daryl and Carol had returned, bearing their news. Nobody replied. Rick sighed. "I'm as much a part of this group as anyone and I've been here longer than most. I lost my sister, not my mind."

"I'm gonna go get water." Carol shifted and stood up. They had a pretty decent supply of it now, but Daryl knew that wasn't the reason for her premature departure. Everyone else was itching to leave the discomfort, but this was more than that. He nodded, licking the last of the soup off his spoon and fingers as he rose to follow just a few minutes later. They'd made camp down an offshoot path from the main road. Abraham and Rosita were in the firetruck (Daryl didn't want to know what they were doing), Sasha was sleeping in the back seat of a Toyota they'd picked up a few days back, and the rest were enjoying their newfound spoils around the campfire, like damn boy scouts. The supplies were stocked up in some beat-up Volvo Glenn found on a run. Carol had the door open and was fumbling around in the quiet before Daryl could begin to speak. "Don't."

"Ain't done anything yet." Daryl replied. The moon was waxing, impossibly bright, bathing the world in shades of silver.

"You were going to. You were going to say something. 'Bout Sophia. Beth. I know you. And I said those same words Maggie did. But... I don't want to talk about it, not now, anyway." She sighed, and turned around, smiling half-heartedly, and it seemed to Daryl that in this night world of bone white stars and stark pallid light, her eyes were impossibly blue.

"Alright. We won't talk about it now." Daryl shrugged. He didn't like Carol keeping shit in. But he wasn't gonna do anything that'd make her uncomfortable. "Ain't gonna lie, was getting pretty awkward there anyway."

"What's more awkward is walking past that fire truck," Carol replied, coming up with a bottle of water and holding it out. He took a few steps to take it, smiling again.

"It's like a damn romance novel," Daryl was only half complaining. It was almost hopeful, in a way - not Rusty and Lara Croft, but everything else. Rick getting his little girl back. Glenn and Maggie. His breathing didn't seem so cold anymore. He half-heard Carol say yeah, or something to that effect. By some inconsiderate instinct, his hand found the toughened material of his jacket, where it sheilded her shoulder, between his fingers. Warm. She was the first person to ever wear those wings, side from him. They were like... A piece of him. The silence beneath the breathing and the heartbeats lasted a second or a century, but it wasn't him who broke it.

"Sorry, you can have this back, I didn't even realize..." And suddenly her eyes were downcast, and he had no idea what to say.

He shook his head by a half fraction. "Mm. You keep it for tonight. Need it more than I do."

"I couldn't..."

"But ya will." Daryl nodded awkwardly, failed to suppress a smile, and walked away, back to the camp. When he got that jacket back, the next morning, the first thing he noticed was the essence of Carol on it, the smell of her surrounding him when he put it back on, like hugging her. From then on, it belonged to them both, back and forth.

It was an angelic arrangement.


	3. Defining Soulmates

**Crossbows, Choice, and Cherokee Roses**

**A/N ~ **This one was inspired by a fanvideo whose name I've already forgotten because I'm a silly shippy retard. It basically had a speech about soulmates involved. And I think, whoever you are, whether you ship it or not, you have to agree; friendship or otherwise, Carol and Daryl are soulmates. I'm going with the basic idea that Sophia was 12 during season two, and about a year or more has gone by from then till now. This starts three years pre-apocalypse, so she's about nine. Anyway, enjoy!

CARYLCARYLCARYLCARYLCARYLCARYLITSHEALTHYFORYOURSOUL

**Defining Soulmates**

[_Sophia comes home from school one day and asks her what a soulmate is. Five years later, Carol feels like she understands_. Spoilers for 5A.]

"Hi, mama!" Carol heard the door click shut, and the footsteps, moments befire her daughter appeared in the kitchen in front of her, Spongebob backpack still sitting on her skinny shoulders.

"Afternoon, sweetheart. You have fun today?" She tried to smile, for Sophia's sake - it was one of the better days. The sun was shining, a burnished gold, a prolonged summer warmth radiating through the windows and into the house; Ed was working late again. Sophia would never have taken the school bus home if he wasn't. Lying to him was a risky business, but every breath she took nowdays was a step out onto a road of eggshells, and if Sophia wanted to feel like a normal kid and ride home with her friends, Carol wanted to let her. When she could; the two days a week it was up to her.

"Uh huh. Billy May started a game of tag in the playground, but we were allowed on the feild, cause it's sunny, so we all played there instead and it was way more fun. Do you think it's gonna be warm again tomorrow?" Carol smiled. She relished these little moments, when he was out, and her child could be a child.

"You bet it is." She gave her a quick hug. "Hey, I'm making you a snack before Daddy gets in. You want some PB and J or just the J?"

"PB and J, definitely," Sophia had tensed slightly at the mention of her father, but there was a silent pact between the two of them, an unspoken promise not to ruin their precious time without him by acknowledgng his shadow dark across them. She sat down at the kitchen table, unloading her homework from her backpack, and getting to work. After a while, the question came out of the blue. "Mommy, what's a soulmate?"

Carol's knife stopped mid-spread, and she turned around. "What're you talking about, sweetie?"

"Only, we were talking about soulmates today, and Jamie Brown who sits next to me said they don't exist, but Allie said they do so, because her mommy and daddy are soulmates and she's gonna find hers when she grows up, and he said they're just in love, cause soulmates aren't real, and he said, are they, Sophia? And I didn't know what to say, but everyone else started arguing about it and Miss Miller said to stop so we aren't supposed to talk about soulmates anymore, but I just wanted to know what one is." She finished, all in one breath, and Carol sat down across from her, finishing the sandwitch and cutting it in half before sliding it to her. "Thank you, mommy,"

She paused. Life certainly didn't come with a guide; there was nothing that told you what to say when your nine year old daughter came home asking what a soulmate was. Particularly when Carol's beliefs on the matter were uncertain at least. She used to think she'd just meet someone, fall in love, and that'd be it. A lot had happened since then, of course, but she didn't want Sophia worrying about that sort of thing. She was determined her daughter would lead an accomplished, happy life. Sophia deserved to dream.

"A soulmate is someone who you love." Sophia opened her mouth - when Ed wasn't around, when it was just the two of them, she always had something to say - and Carol smiled slightly for her daughter's benefit. "But... It's more than that. It's someone you trust completely, someone you can be entirely yourself with. Someone who you want to share everything with, someone who feels like home." She had no idea where any of this was coming from, but Sophia seemed satisfied with it. "They're someone who makes you a better person, just by being around you. And you make them better. A soulmate doesn't have to be someone you're romantic with. It can be a best friend. Sometimes, if you're really lucky, it can be both."

Sophia seemed to consider that for a moment, chewing thoughtfully. "Oh," She said, cheerfully as she ever could. "Okay." She paused. "D'ya think I'll find one someday?"

"I know it." Carol prayed she would. When she turned eighteen, she'd move out, find somebody, start a life, and never look back. Carol was determined. There was no going back for her now, but she could still do this one thing right, she'd still do right by her daughter. "And Soph? Don't mention any of this to your daddy. Or the PB and J. Don't want him to think I'm ruining your appetite."

"Got it." Sophia hesitated, as Carol grabbed a sponge, hastily wiping away evidence of their strawberry-flavoured rebellion. "Mama... I don't think it's fair if you give up. You might still find a soulmate. You never know."

-O-

_A soulmate is someone you love._

They were a family, the straggling survivors. The leftover living. Through a red parade, a gore-spattered nightmare, they had found each other. Maybe it was fate, or maybe it was coincidence, or maybe it was just dumb luck, but they'd found each other. They'd fought together and loved together and stuck together through hell. That made them a family, as far as Carol was concerned.

They'd touched each other's lives. For some of them, it'd been instant. Others were a vrlittle more unexpected. If someone had told her, three years ago, that she'd be waiting out a herd of the undead in some tool shed, with a crossbow-shooting man named Daryl Dixon, on the way back from a supply run, and she was just happy for some extra alone time with him, she'd have laughed. But through it all, somehow, they were the most similar; and the most different. He understood, in ways that the rest of the group just... Didn't. It wasn't till him that she realized she'd never had a real best friend before.

_But... It's more than that. It's someone you trust completely, someone you can be entirely yourself with_.

"You okay?" Daryl asked, counting out his crossbow bolts.

"I've been better," Carol replied, reloading her gun. It was safest, with a group like this, to just find a hiding place and wait it out. Of course, sometimes that wasn't enough. "Been a lot worse, too." Her injuries from Grady weren't entirely gone yet, either.

"Not many people'd be standin' after what you been through." Daryl told her absently; there were moments, like that, when he'd talk about her and make her sound like like a damn superhero. But most of the time, he just... Got her. It sounded weird, and slightly cheesy, but what was different with Daryl was how clearly he saw her, underneath everything else. Her soul was chipped and flawed, and tough in places it shouldn't be, soft in places she could do without, but so was his; so he accepted hers, and she returned the courtesy. All scars understood. No judgement. None at all. There was no pretense. No act.

Worn pre-dusk light filtered through a murky window, motes of stale dust highlighted stark against the rotting air, where he pulled down one of the blinds. "Still a bunch of 'em out there. Might be better off just waitin' out the night. Rick'll understand." Carol nodded. She trusted him. More than she'd ever trusted anybody. She didn't need to ask to know the feeling was mutual.

_Someone who you want to share everything with, someone who feels like home._

It was Daryl she wanted to tell when anything good happened. It was Daryl she wanted to stay at the cottage with; it was Daryl, and the others, that made her leave. When she'd found the girls, and the blood, in the garden, it was Daryl she wanted to turn to. She was just grateful to feel that strongly about someone.

"Y'know, I wish you'd have been there. When me 'n Beth found the funeral home. Sounds strange, but you'd have liked it. Music, food. You'd have stopped 'em. The bastards who took her." Daryl sometimes spoke like that and it always amazed her. He sat down beside her, against the splintering wooden wall.

"Daryl. You did everything you could. Stop... Beating yourself up about what happened in the past. God knows I need to."

"Doesn't count for anything now though." Daryl shrugged. "Past ain't real."

"And you say you're not smart." She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the wall. There wasn't even a sofa, a chair to spend the night on. They'd barricaded the door with the sparse, rotting table. Whoever owned this place was a real ass, she decided. Then she felt bad. She had to thank him, really. "We should get some sleep."

"Yeah." Daryl sat foreward and began taking off his jacket.

"Are you stripping, Daryl Dixon?"

"Stop." He rolled his eyes at her. He had a jumper on beneath the jacket anyway, and she didn't have time to protest or question it when he dumped it unceremoniously on top of her. "Don't want ya to be cold," He muttered sheepishly. She snuggled gratefully beneath it's warmth. The thing smelled like smoke and soil and something else, something comforting and distinctly Daryl.

"Well, get under," Carol lifted one side of it. "I'm not gonna have you freeze to death in some shack while I'm all warm and comfortable." She paused, and smiled slightly. "Well. Maybe not comfortable."

"You sure?" Daryl fiddled with a scratch on his crossbow.

"I'm sure." He sighed and sidled closer, underneath the jacket, hardly wide enough to properly cover one of them, let alone them both, but it was better than nothing. She remembered talking with him, most of the night. She didn't remember falling asleep, but when she woke up, his heartbeat was steady beneath her ear and his arm was warm, curled around her like a shield, and only with Daryl Dixon could anywhere feel like home.

_They're someone who makes you a better person, just by being around you. And you make them better. _

He'd changed. He was a man now, but he was so much more, so much more rare. He was a man of honour. But most of all, he'd changed her. Without him, she didn't know who she'd be today; not the woman who helped with laundry at the quarry camp, a million years ago. But not who she was today.

They were better, together.

_A soulmate doesn't have to be someone you're romantic with. It can be a best friend. _

_Sometimes, if you're really lucky, it can be both._

And suddenly, Carol understood what she'd meant, when she'd talked about soulmates with Sophia. She could feel her daughter's prescence, in her abscence, and the warmth from the archer huddled close. She'd never been favoured by life before. But maybe she really was one of the luckiest people there were.

A/N ~ Basically I have about 357269842 of these (all better than this cheese fest) on my tablet, and to make space, I'm uploading a bunch of them at once. Otherwise, updates will be sporadic due to my lack of internet at home. Don't worry; if you send me a request or prompt, I will get around to it.


	4. Gotta Be Something

**Crossbows, Choice and Cherokee Roses**

**A/N ~ **Ok, so I was watching a Carylish crack!vid the other day which was fabulous (anything that pu ts My Heart Will Go On to the reunion and pinpoints my reaction exactly has to be) and there's just a split second after a '6 1\2 hours later' with the group watching the Caryl hug with crickets and *awkward* and I realized... Whilst a heartwarming reaction for our old favourites, some of the gang who never actually met Carol before might've been a bit confused. Also, speculating...

And, ceasing the rambling, this one shot was born. (This is set at the church before Carol and Daryl once more don their capes to go save Beth.) (So... Kind of AUish?) (#TaraKindOfShipsIt.) (Scratch that.) (#TaraFuckingShipsIt.) (Actually) #TaraIsKindOfMe.)

This is fucking cheesy. Like everything I fucking write.

**Gotta Be Something**

**[**_ The group speculate on what's between their resident archer and their single handed saviour_**. 5x2. ] **

"Can I just ask?" Tara wondered aloud, scraping our the bottom of her can. "What is going on with those two?" She guestered to Daryl and the woman with the blue eyes, (in a way she hoped was subtle), the one that had saved them all. Single handedly. With a gun and a rocket. Motherfuck, she was cool.

The corner of Maggie's mouth jerked up into a half-smile. "Believe me, I've been asking myself that for years."

"You haven't known them for years," Glenn muttered, coming to sit down with them, salvaged handful of their new stock of food spilling out. Though the dimmed world beyond was still, like death, the warmth of laughter had wormed into the cracks of the church. That Father Gabriel dude still looked a little nervous, Tara thought, but she guessed she would be too, after being alone so long. "They were both at the first camp we were at. Didn't seem to pay much attention to each other back then." He paused, to eat for a second. "There's five of us left from that place, and none of us are the people we were then. But nobody's changed like the two of them. They kinda changed each other, you know?"

"Sounds like you're writing a damn romance novel," Carl grinned, looking up from his meal and joining their conversation for the first time.

"Language, kid," Glenn joked.

Maggie rolled her eyes. "I said a lot worse at a lot younger."

"Seriously though," Tara pressed. She was intriuged. Maybe if she got to know the group a bit better they'd feel a bit more like family. The two in question were sitting side by side, against one of the pews on the other side of the church, laughing slightly about something, passing some kind of packaged food back and forth. "Are they? A romance novel, I mean. 'Cause, I don't know them well, but it sure looks like it from here."

"I'm not sure." Maggie frowned. "All I know is, if they are platonic, they spend a heck of a lot of time together. And when we were all back home, my home, I mean - he worked pretty damn hard trying to find her daughter. And this was before he, y'know, worked hard. Or cared about any of us. He was kind of a dick, actually. But she made him care."

"Who's writing the romance novel now?" Glenn nudged her.

"I don't know," Tara mused. "When they saw each other again? Reminded me a bit of you two, when you found each other. And he hasn't left her side since."

"You should have seen Daryl's face when she had to leave the prison." Carl put in.

"Daryl's what?" Rick sat himself on one of the pews behind their little circle of gossip, rocking his baby gently. Tara had always been a bit of a tomboy; she was never invited to many girly sleepovers, but she imagined this gossip was the sort of thing that she had missed out on. It wasn't bad.

"Daryl and Carol; ultimate couple or really, really close friends?" Maggie posed, like an oldschool news anchor. Glenn snorted softly and Rick gave the closest thing to a relaxed smile Tara had actually ever seen cross his face.

"What they do or feel for each other is their business," Rick stated, seamlessly assuming the Gravelly Voiced Leader Face again, as Tara had accidently taken to privately referring to it as. He paused, and the iron faded. "But, if I had to guess, I'd say... There might be something more going on." Everyone grinned.

"Might be? Look at that!" Tara exclaimed, trying to keep her voice down. For the first time, she felt almost like one of them. The other side of the church, Daryl was motioning a can of soup in Carol's face, aparantly trying to get her to have a taste. "Look at the way he's looking at her!"

"So, in the opinion of an outsider; ultimate couple." Glenn clarified, then hesitated. "Y'know, there was more than one moment at the prison when I wondered..."

"Maybe you're right and they just haven't realized it yet." Maggie glanced over at them. "Sometimes these things happen so naturally you don't have to stop and acknowledge it. It just... Happens, right." Carl made retching noises. "Ok, fine, I am the soppy romance novel. Go back to your canned beans."

Tara smiled into her soup. She was certain that if she got a pool going on this she could make some serious... No, money didn't exist anymore. Maybe they could bet warm clothing or pudding or something. But either way, she knew, whatever was between Daryl and Carol - it was nothing short of love. She sighed and shifted, setting her can aside. Apocalypses; bringing people together since the first outbreak. She'd better find someone soon. All these lovey vibes were going to her head.

**A/N ~** #OkayTaraIsACaryler #bcireallyliketara #ikindofwanttobehergirlfriend


	5. Before I Die

**Crossbows, Choice and Cherokee Roses**

**A/N ~ **It's here. This one was so much fun for me to write. As always, thank you to anyone who set aside the time to read this crazy feels fest. Just to clarify, there is no order to any of these one shots. I put spoilers or settings in the little descriptiony bit under the one shot , I know and accept Normy-Warmy's headcanon of Daryl having no game at all and I like that idea but frankly... This. I literally had the best time with this omf.

**Before I Die**

**[ **_They say the best kisses are the ones that have been exchanged a thousand times in the mind, eyes and heart before they reach the lips._ **]**

They were everywhere.

They'd dealt with walkers before. They'd beaten walkers before. They'd lived alongside them, worked hope around them, grown definitely, desolately immune to their prescence. The living were so much worse; the walkers were just a backdrop, a turning page.

They'd beaten walkers before. But not like this.

Fucking everywhere.

"I can't hold this side much longer!" Carol shot. Squeezed trigger, spun, stabbed, shot. Shot. Desperate, worried glances in his direction. Shot. The herd had come from nowhere, and the racket would surely attract any others in the area. There were so many. She didn't know where they'd come from. When they'd stopped by the house last night, this big, deserted palace, an overnight stop, on the road to the safe zone, and then... They'd woken up to this. Carl, Rick and Michonne were fighting through the geeks blocking the alleyway where they'd all parked. She was sure that Tyreese, Judith and Tara had gotten to the firetruck. She didn't know where the rest had ended up. Somehow, it had come down to her and Daryl, cornered, by the locked garage.

"We gotta go!" Daryl shouted, yanking an arrow from the russet ruin of a walker's skull just in time to slam it into the face of another. They should be abIe to take these. They should be fine. It was just the sheer mass of them... How could so many come from nowhere? It didn't make any sense. "Carol, we gotta go!"

"The others are still in there!" And yet somehow there seemed to be more and more of the walkers. Daryl was right, as usual - there was no way they could fight this lot off. They'd have no run, no question. She was just humouring herself.

"We gotta go!" He repeated, and spun around, yanking a walker's arm back so Carol could put a knife in his head. His eyes flickered up to hers for the split second they could afford, and they were hard and tubborn and pleading at the same time. Carol nodded bleakly, shooting, shooting. "Carol, come on, let's go!" He yelled, motioning with his crossbow and smashing a walker's torn scalp inwards at the same time. She followed when he ran, shooting.

Somehow, by an unspoken mutual agreement to keep quiet, she pocketed her gun and clenched her fist tight around her knife. The state of the world. Once splendid houses wasted away, choked by weeds; scratches, blood, filth, blood. Overhead, a bruised belt of sky hung full and low, ruin-saturated air smotheringly thick, heavy; the clouds curled at their rotting edges. An acrid stench of smoke and blood and rust and rain settled like dust on a fragile, grey landscape. They ran. Her legs ached, muscles aching deep and refusing to give in, her blade's hilt slipped in her clammy grip. Daryl was ahead, bag slung across his shoulder, a spatter of black walker blood bright across the wings of his jacket, crossbow dangling from grimy fingers. She didn't know where they were going.

Daryl veered off suddenly; the pavement was cracked and bloody, and the dead milled mindlessly about. "In." He decided, shouldering open the nearest building door; she dove in, and yanked the door shut behind them, falling against it, panting. Her breathing scraped her cold throat raw, the blood in her temples pounding, molten in her veins. Daryl had fallen to the pockmarked concrete floor of what Carol assumed to be some wealthy ex-human's empty garage, staring at the closed door. Tools in battered metal boxes, speckled with age spots of rust, lying beside dust-filmed jars of milky glass, undisturbed raincoats slumped on nails in the wall. No living, besides the two of them, and no dead.

"We have to go back," Carol insisted, the minute she regained control of her lungs. Daryl looked exhausted, drained but strong, as if his body were knit with iron and whiskey in place of bone and blood. Half of her felt that way; she felt broken and infinite, desperate and hopeful and lost and found. "We have to go back for them."

Daryl nodded, slowly, glancing up at her, picking at a crossbow bolt, dripping ruby. "Yeah,"

"Now," She clarified, an unanounced shiver tearing down her spine without her permission. It was cold in this hollow place, which had once been so lived in; she felt as though if she could just find the right crack in the air, the ghosts would come flooding on through. Daryl stood up, hand braced on his knees, wiping the blood and the dust of days gone by from his palms. Their every breath froze for a moment in the air, and as he stepped foreward, obsessively rubbing his dirty knuckles against his jeans, as if to clean them, the chilly effect a little girl who had once been her daughter always called dragon breath, the cold air from their overworked lungs mingled for a moment between them, a split-second cloud of silver. For once, Carol had no idea what he was thinking, how he wanted to go on. He was just standing there, looking at her. "Daryl."

"Yeah," He murmured, gravel tone of his voice quiet. Beneath their inseparable heartbeats, alternate breaths, a deafening silence roared on. Maybe the herd outside had dissapitated, or maybe they'd just calmed down, but either way, they wouldn't have vanished so - and then Daryl was kissing her, and she couldn't think.

For the first few seconds, she was so startled, so mentally incoherant she couldn't string two words together in her mind, let alone form any kind of reaction. And his hands were radiating warmth, through the thin cloth of her jacket, her shirt, where he had them light on her hips. And somehow, he was so gentle and right, it didn't matter where they were, why they were - only that they were, and with each other. When she'd shaken her shock, when she poured her every emotion from the past year, every thought and smile and denial and touch of hands and this realizion that it was him, of course, it was alway him; into responding, that was when he relented to himself. His lips were soft and the solid, earthy scent of him was everywhere. His grip on her tightened, palms moving up her back, his heartbeat erratic against hers, kissing her with a kind of fierce, tender passion, so that the world fell away.

Carol stared when he reluctantly pulled away, after a minute or a millennium, with his eyes downcast, face scarlet, breathing wildly. She'd forgotton how to speak. His eyes darted up to hold her gaze for a while. "I had to do that once, 'least." Daryl murmured. "Before I died."

**A/N ~** For the record, they went off, saved everyone else (who were all clueless) and drove off. I just couldn't be fucked to write it. Don't be too harsh with reviews, I am but a soppy shippy teenager who is not that great at writing kissy kissy. My feels tend to tangle my actual words and it begins to sound like Twilight.


	6. A Friend's Perogative

**Crossbows, Choice and Cherokee Roses**

**A/N ~** My first CC&CR AU, how exciting! This was taken from a longer multichapter that I eventually lost Mr Flow for and never published anyway, but I actually thought this scene was alright in my cheesy angsty way, so... Slightly adapted for your one-shot persual... *drumroll* If I ever get around to rebooting and finishing that fic I'll put a link up here.

**A Real Friend's Perogative**

[ _Whenever Ed hits her, in whatever way; it's Daryl that's there, Daryl that patches her up. Always._ College!Caryl No-ZA AU. ]

He was on his feet immediately, before the door even knocks. He saw her starlit silhouette cross the cracked window, not even duct-taped or boarded with card, and lunged for the door. He hadn't seen his father for days, and if the past was anything to go by, he wouldn't see him for a longer while yet. Merle was at the local drug den with his biker buddies and his latest girlfriend. Daryl was half convinced she was a whore.

"Hi," Carol sniffled, on the crappy metal stairway to the caravan; Da had never said anything about why they'd moved, and to a rusty shit on wheels too, except for shut the hell up and mind ya own business. Daryl didn't care. The old smoke-stained shack was a dump, and if they hadn't moved round here, he'd never have met his best friend. Ha. Didn't that sound corny. She was shivering on the step with a thin cardigan wrapped tight around her, nose slightly red.

"The hell you doin' out there, you wanna freeze to death? Get in here," Daryl muttered. She already had one of those damn winter colds that were going around; he told her to stay warm until it went away. This was becoming to often a recurrance for Daryl's comfort. Carol was the first proper friend he ever had, and time with her was so much better than time wasted without her, but he didn't like these circumstances. Made him want to beat the crap out of a very specific something. Carol went, head down, to sit on the burn-marked, offensively-patterned sofa that only a Dixon could tolerate. Daryl reached for the coolbox, for a Coke. She declined when he offered it to her so he popped the tab himself. "It's late."

"I didn't know where else to go." She told him, as if that was an ordinary response to a comment about the time. Her cardigan was slipping slightly off her shoulder. He felt his nails digging hard into his palms, fists painfully curled so as to avoid looking too long at the mottled, macabre rainbow where the cloth fell away. When she'd first showed up with her bruises and her lies, he'd gone crazy, smashing up half the place. Nobody noticed when they got back from their latest binge. She had to run out into the rain after him, to stop him from going after the shithole. The one who Daryl didn't dignify with a name.

"Yeah, well," Daryl muttered. "Maybe you should'a thought of that before you went with him tonight,"

"I'm sorry!"

"Don't, okay?" Daryl shook his head. He shouldn't have said that. Growing uo with Merle Dixon as an older brother had programmed him to snap the nastiest thing that first entered his mind. He sighed. "Don't apologise to me. You don't ever apologise to me. You don't ever apologise to anyone you don't need to. I just... You want ice?"

"You don't have to. I'll go in a minute, I promise. I'll sneak back in and say I tripped, I've done it before. I just didn't know where I was going 'til I was here." He noticed the faint trace of goosepimples at her wrist, so he put the kettle on. It was thanks to her he even knew how to make tea. He saw his poncho on the end of his bare matress, so he balled it up and tossed it to her. She stared at it. "Thank you. But -"

"No. You're stayin' here tonight. If you go back out there you're gonna catch something." Daryl insisted. It had never been like this before. She lived close enough to her college that she could still stay with her folks, and drive there and back every morning and night. His caravan was five minutes away from her house, perched on the edge of town. They met almost ten months ago, when she was happy and bright but iron and steel, and she taught him how to smile. He hated her at first, Miss I'm Getting An Education And I Read Fancy Books, but now, hell - the world would be a lot shittier place without her. He took her out on Merle's motorbike and taught her to shoot a crossbow. She talked to him for hours, and cooked him decent meals when Da and Merle were gone. Sometimes they didn't even do anything; they just sat around in a comforting silence while she did her coursework and he butchered squirrels. Sometimes it was in the caravan, when the others were out - sometimes at the river in the fir woods, where they met. Then slugshit entered the picture and after a while, she didn't smile so well. He studied her for a moment while the kettle shrieked on. "What happened?"

"I tripped." The side of her face was scarlet, and her lip was split. She smiled weakly, and opened the ponch gratefully up over her. The first time she had a fight - all verbal - with the piece of crap, she'd turned up fuming at his door and he calmed her down and they slept beside each other on the mattress.

"Yeah, well maybe you should stop walking on uneven ground," He offered. "You'd trip a lot less."

"I'm not just doing this for me," Carol insisted, as Daryl poured the tea into a couple of scarred novelty mugs. "If I did everything you wanted me to, if I told my parents, or I left him, you and me both know who he'd blame. I'm keeping you out if all this."

"Then how come you always end up here, with me patching ya up and slappin' ice on you," I don't want ya protecting me. I'd rather die than have you keep this up. Don't be a fucking martyr. Daryl handed her a cup, reaching for an ice pack from the coolbox, to emphasize his point. "Put this on your face. It helps."

"Thanks," She obeyed gratefully, and Daryl went to sit beside her. "So," Awkward silence.

"So," Daryl repeated. He sipped his tea, scalding, and his arm went instinctively around her, when he felt her head on his shoulder.

"How'd we get here?" Carol wondered, and Daryl was almost sure she never meant for that to be audible. We.

"Go to sleep." He told her. She did.

-o-

"Carol!" Daryl hollered, as he struggled to his feet. "Carol, dammit," His voiced had dropped to a mutter, glancing around. Sometimes she left before he woke up; she always rose early. But he didn't know where she was going, what she was goung to say to her parents. Sometimes she said she'd crashed with a friend at college, when she slept at his. And yet... Ugh. He didn't know. He yanked open the caravan door, falling out into the cold morning sunlight.

The caravan squatted in a plain field, beside the road into town. A mist-wreathed forest in hues of mud and pine sliced at the faded colourless sky to it's back. Carol was walking across the grass, toward the road to her house. "Carol!" He yelled. "Carol, the hell are you doing? Car!" Carol kept her head down in the distance. She was walking fast but Daryl had broken into a run without even knowing it. "Carol," he panted. She didn't turn around. "Carol, don't do this anymore! Just stop, okay! Just forget him, cut him out, you're steel, okay, this ain't you!" He grabbed her arm.

"Daryl, I don't see any other choice right now -"

He stared at her for a moment, caution, cleverness be fucked. He tugged her arm harder, and before she had a chance to make any more excuses for the shit he kissed her. Like he wanted to do for so long. He wasn't about to give up. Firm, and soft, and still holding her sleeve, he kissed her. It took a moment, but Carol was kissing him back, and it was perfect. It shouldn't have been, it shouldn't have - but it took everything in him to pull away, breathing hard. "You got other choices."


	7. Ripples

**Crossbows, Choice and Cherokee Roses**

**A/N ~ **This is set in the vaguely distant future so don't ask any questions about where they're going and why they're on foot because I will run away and cry. Why are you bringing logic into this, anyway, just sit back (or lie back if you're im bed rn) and enjoy the splishy splashy skinny love Caryl-scented goodness. #KeepCalmAndCarylOn

It starts out slow but this is possibly my favourite Caryl thing I have written. Trigger warning for domestic abuse and childhood abuse, and stereotypicial cheesy angsty fluffy scar-kissing goodness

**Ripples**

[_ Summer has brutally arrived, and the lake felt like more of a godsend than anything else. Daryl and Carol could only really enjoy it by themselves. Their scars go hand in hand._ FarPost-5x8.]

"It's so hot," Maggie complained. They'd been walking all day, and the heat had stubbornly refused to relax, pouring in thick, almost tangible waves off the gravel-scattered road, tarmac baked, grassy fields either side yellowing like books left to rot, withering like trees who have seen too much. Not a damn drop of breeze; just unforgiving heat, plastering his shirt to his back, hair to his face and neck. His crossbow, loose in his grip, was slippery.

"Sorry," Tara breathed, a few steps behind. "Do you want me to leave?"

Maggie frowned. "What?"

"It was a joke," Tara mumbled, face flushed, damp scarlet. "I was making a joke." She kept her head down after that. "Nevermind." Daryl would have smirked, if the effort of dragging himself foreward and not melting wasn't already draining him. His head hurt. Fuck. He'd always said, he'd rather be too cold than too hot. If you were cold, you could get warm easily.

"Ok." Glenn panted. "I'm dying. Maggie, baby, you're gonna have to carry me."

"Yeah, I don't love you that much," Maggie replied. "Rick, are you sure that we'll reach this house soon? I think I'm turning to goo."

"It'll be here." Rick insisted. It was alright for him and his kids. They'd found some sunscreen at a 7-Eleven to slather the baby in, Carl had his hat, which might as well have been a fucking parasol, the shade it produced. "I'm tellin' you, it's here. Lori's dad passed away not long before. I'm hoping the end of the world would have stopped them from clearing out the house too soon. Carl and I went fishing there all the time when he was a kid. There's bound to be a few ready meals left in that old tool shed - way Lori complained about all the preservatives," Rick never meantioned Lori, not much, nor did anyone else. They didn't talk about the people they'd lost. Period. Hell, maybe they were growing or something. Still, Daryl didn't stop to ponder it too long. His head fucking hurt, he was sure his nose was sunburned and his gun was searingly hot everytime it bumped against his leg.

He kept glancing warily at Carol, but if she was suffering the fatigue of heat any more than a normal person, she wasn't showing it, just dragging on with that familiar determined look on her face. The rest of the trek were mere hours, but it could have been years for all the effort it took. Heat depleats. And god knows how they took down the trio of walkers who crossed their paths.

It was funny, how one minute time stands still and the last of your strength is draining out of you like sweat, and then you see shade, and water that might not be lukewarm and plasticky, and suddenly you've never been faster.

Several possibly walker-attracting whoops, triumphant shouts of joy errupted into the air. Daryl didn't even bother to try to restrain his; his baked crossbow slipped from his palm and before he knew it he'd torn over to the shade of the tree-encircled haven. The house wasn't huge, but it was big enough, all authentic wood, and the lake looked dirty but not contagious. Maggie, Glenn, Rosita and Carl were all submerged in the water before anyone had a chance to say anything coherant.

-O-

As it turned out, there wasn't anything safe to eat hanging around, but they still had some food saved from their last run, and they all ate by the light of the late, insistant sun, while everyone spent the evening in and out of the lake water. Daryl didn't, so he just sat on one of the deck chairs they'd dragged from the basement, beside a similarly dry Carol, eating kidney beans from a tin. Every so often the pre-dusk light filtered golden through the sweeping boughs of the trees, falling softly in a myriad of dancing orbs on the dehydrated lawn and it felt almost... He didn't know. With the sound of Judith's laughter, a half-decent seat under his ass, and Carol smiling next to him, if felt almost okay.

It wasn't, of course. He couldn't help thinking that this was where Rick's parents in law once lived, and they sure as hell didn't now. That Beth would have loved to splash about with Carl, and Merle would make some comment about what fucking pansy-ass shit this all was, but he'd be enjoying himself underneath. "Not gonna go join the fun?" Carol asked, setting aside her empty can.

Daryl frowned at the idyllic scenery. Maybe they were stupid. Maybe they should stay in the house, conserve their food, keep longer alternations on watch time. But like hell they were going to pass up the first good opportunity they were offered in a long time. Carl was up to his chest in the water, holding Judith above him and dangling her toes in the water. "Ain't really my sort of thing," He muttered. "You should go, though. Don't let me hold ya back."

"Don't flatter yourself," Carol closed her eyes, and they shared the sunlight. "I'm just not in the mood."

"First chance to get clean and have fun in weeks, and you're in the mood?" She gave him a look and he smiled, settling back in the old deck chair. "Fine, ain't here to judge." Daryl sunk into a peaceful quiet for half a moment before they were both laughing again. "Seriously,"

Carol frowned good-naturedly. "Daryl Dixon, are you trying to get me to take my clothes off?"

"Stop," He shoved her arm, and for the first time in his life, he did what could only be called sunbathing.

"Daryl -" Rick called, as he walked past with the baby on his hip. "You good for the first night watch? Tyreese'll switch with you at midnight." Daryl nodded and Rick carried on.

And so as everyone disappeared into the house, one by one, Daryl was left, sitting in his deckchair as the sable silhouetts of the trees sliced stark at the sullen sunset. The crickets soon joined his guard. He sat with his back to the house and the lake, hands resting on his crossbow.

There was something odd about the peacefulness of it all. Disconcerting. Quiet was a welcome change, but it was off-putting. Everyone was so relaxed this afternoon, which would make the next hurdle so much harder to leap. He knew that. But it still felt like they deserved it, he guessed. A break. They'd only stay for another day, at the most. Rick wanted them to move on. Find some cars or something. "Hey," He felt a smile take him and he turned around at her voice. It was still warm, for night time, but the cardigan she was wrapped in wasn't without justification. "Did I leave my knife out here?"

"I don't know," Daryl hastened to his feet, glanced around. Pallid streaks of luminescence dappled the dusty ground, a stubborn rind of moon imoossibly clear, shifting stark light like the fragmentation off crystals. He never appreciated before the chill of starlight. "I'll help ya look,"

She nodded. "Thank you," Crazy fuckin' world. No one was going to question whether she wanted to sleep with a blade beneath the pillow. Hell, he'd judge her if she didn't. "Got it," she had a loosened grip on the blade, a silvery glint in the satin night. Amongst the crickets, and the soft whimper of a welcome breeze toying with treetops, the cacophonous orchestra of a shattered world, he could hear her breathing. She turned to go, a figure awash in the night spectrum of silver and chrome.

"Stay," Daryl didn't know where that had come from. He didn't particularly care much, either. He caught her gaze for a moment over her shoulder. "Don't have to. Just thought maybe I could have some company." He dropped his vision to the thirsting soil and clambered back down, sitting beside the still water.

"Course," After the few moments it took to wander the brink of the uncut bank, he felt her drop down next to him, looking out across the tinfoil lake, framed by black cardboard trees, and it seemed to Daryl that the warmth of the Georgia night, and the stark light of the moon were all emphasized, swelling octave by octave. She uncurled the fold of her legs, dangling bared toes in the suface of the water, molten silver ripples rising and fading like time swept asunder. "It's warm,"

"Mm. Got the sun on it all day," Daryl intoned. "And all of us in it."

"Well," Carol smiled softly. "Not actually us."

Daryl picked at the crumbling soil with the end of his crossbow, as it disintegrated into dust. "We should get in," He decided, the idea spilling from his throat before it had even half unfurled in his mind. The warmth prickling in his mind told him what he alrrady knew; that was a stupid thing to say. He glanced over at her, trying to gauge her reaction. The faint trace of a smile lingered, and yet her eyes seemed to tell a different story. "Sorry. Didn't mean it -"

"You first, Dixon," There was still something uncertain, debating emblazoned quite plainly across the way she moved, was. Well. Plain to him; he was sure anyone who knew a person as well as he did would be able to tell. He nodded. Fair enough; it was his fucking idea in the first place. Daryl stood up, tentatively grabbing for the hem of his shirt. No, if he was going to do this, he wanted to be alright with it. He tore the fabric over his head, quick and painless, like ripping away a band-aid, pulling his boots, socks and belt off in quick succession. He was leaving his jeans on, no question. He didn't want to make her uncomfortable. Well, Dixon, should'a thought of that before you took your damn shirt off. If there was anyone he was going to be this exposed with - and he didn't mean that in the obvious way - it had to be her. In the water, in the dark; he stood on the bank, grass bending meekly beneath his bare feet, and hurled himself foreward. Maybe it was time.

The water was warm, shockingly so, only because he'd expected so much cooler. Slick mud lined the barely shallow floor, jeans heavy around his legs. He sank lower, the tepid rush of it enveloping his face, hair, crown. He splashed her when he shattered the glass-still surface, and reclaimed his grin as he kept his shoulders blanketed in the lake. "Come on!" He realized too late it'd be more advisable to keep his voice down, cosidering the state of the world. "Ain't gonna bite,"

Carol nodded on the grass, and it uncannily resembled the act of convincing herself. She didn't turn around, like he always thought she would, dropping the cardigan, and hastily stripping off her shirt; she had a kind of camisole on underneath, that stopped a little short of where it was meant to, and sat herself on the edge of the lake, with something akin to apprehension on her face. "Ya okay?" Daryl swam to her, looking up at her, awash in moonlight. She smiled and nodded, and he took her hand and pulled her in, gently.

She sank a little lower in the water, and then suddenly a flash of wet warmth speckled his face as the silver-lit water surged at him. "Now that is vengeance," Carol grinned, and it was contagious.

"You want revenge, huh, why don't ya -" He wrenched a splash toward her, churning the water up, and she laughed, diving away. He yelped when she shoved a bigger splash in his direction and somehow, they were pushing and splashing each other, arms entangled, before she gasped truce, truce and they settled back amongst the pond weeds.

"Can I just ask?" Carol tried, breathless, after a long, peaceful silence as they drifted absently around the soothing waters. "Why not before?"

Daryl stared at her. "You know,"

"Do I?"

"Never mind," Of course. Carol was the perfect gentlewoman. She never looked. Why would she look? Daryl swallowed his discomfort. He shouldn't have even brought it up as a possibility. But then... That didn't make any sense. "Ya know. Ya really don't know?" He frowned at her. She was looking back at him with that look in those blue eyes, and for the first time, he hadn't the slightest thought what was going on inside her head. "But... The book. At Grady. You had that book -"

"You mean the scars?" Carol's voice was very quiet now, and the smallest of ripples remained. Daryl's breath caught like a foot on roots, his heartbeat tangled up in his lungs. "Daryl... I didn't... I'm not gonna lie, I hate looking at them. But just because I'm thinking of you in pain, I don't..." Her gaze dropped to their close reflections, swaying in the water. "I mean, I've seen worse,"

"Where?" The question came out wrong. He hadn't meant to say it like that. Carol's eyes flickered up to meet his for the slightest moment, the emotion there wavering. The structure if her exhale, the little glance downwards. "Sorry. I'm just..."

"I know," Carol nodded. "I'm sorry. We should just -" It was in her turning to go, moving through the water, that she finally turned her back to him and he understood what she meant, about the pain of thinking about her in pain.

"Carol," He murmured, softly, sloshing through the lake after her. "You don't have to go," The straps of her top were thin, the back low, the scars faded and marbled against her skin, twining like stark, jagged little snakes. Gingerly, he put a hand on her shoulder.

"I'm not going to break," Carol told him, and his grip relaxed a little. "They're still there, but... They're not a part of who I am anymore."

Daryl just stared at her, heart aching, caressing a thumb along her shoulder blade. "Death was too good for that sumbitch." He didn't think she'd hear his mumbled instinct comment, but she replied with sincerity.

"You don't think I've thought the same about whoever did that to you?" It was sad, and it was sick, but he recognized those marks. His Da had liked cigars, too. Same kind of belt. "Past's dead. We're different people now."

"Mm." Daryl wasn't sure why; maybe because she didn't sound as commited as she could have, or because the past was alive, there, and staring him in the face. Because he couldn't bear the idea of someone hurting her. Because he she could have beaten the crap out of that piece of shit when he had the chance. But she didn't seem to mind, when he ghosted his lips along the scars. He knew that she'd stayed with him for her little girl, she'd taken everything to protect her - she'd changed, sure. But she was never weak.

He hugged her then, in the lake, and they stayed that way for a long time, before Tyreese came out for his watch, which was awkward for him, but Daryl didn't care. He could thinj what he liked. And he faintly recalled some old saying - about how one day, you'll find the embrace that makes all your broken parts heal up.


	8. Very Van Gough

**Crossbows, Choice and Cherokee Roses**

**A/N ~ **Personal headcanon of Daryl getting roped into helping Carol out with the kids when they were drawing chalk pictures on the prison walls. I mean, Carol is like superhero mother so I always imagined her supervising. But we know they have very different opinions on art, and the possibility for Caryl cuteness was too much omf. This is just fluff, I'm not even going to pretend there's drama here

#MikaShipsIt #ChildrenShipIt #EveryoneShipsIt #iwrotethistiredin15minutesbekind

**It's Very Van Gough**

[ _Carol thanked Michonne endlessly; it was good for the kids to be doing kid-things. She just never expected Daryl to help out._ Pre-4x1.]

"Carol -" Michonne motioned for her to come talk as she swung down off of her horse; where she had accquired that animal Carol had no idea, but he was stunning. Carol thought he looked like a he. "Got something for you to pass along, if you want," She smiled, fumbling in her bag - that was a new find as well, reserved for runs. Prison life was sustainable. They could afford little luxuries now; and god knew they needed them. "I thought the kids might enjoy..." She came up with it, triumphantly. A plastic container, clear and dusty. "These," Chalk. Coloured chalk, crumbling away, smearing rainbow residue on the box.

"Oh wow," Carol remembered drawing on the concrete with those things when she was little. "Thank you," She didn't quite know when she'd assumed the role of community babysitter - somehow the kids had gravitated towards her. And it felt... Good, in a way. Looking after them, teaching them. It was like making peace for Sophia. Making sure what happened to her little girl would not happen to anyone else. The books were a constant; books were all over the place. And once she'd started making sure they could look after their lives if it ever came down to it, she was rarely at a loss. But she was always so desperate for them to do proper kid things. She knew some of them played hide and seek in their cell block, or tag when it was sunny, but they were kids. In constant need of newness. "Thank you so much. You've just made a lot of kids in the apocalypse very happy,"

"We've all got our specialties," Michonne grinned, and Carol was still smiling as she walked off. It wasn't like those kids were her main job in the self-sufficient community of the prison, but there was something undeniably special about trying to make a difference to a child raised in a perpetual warzone.

-o-

"Wow, that is really good," Carol smiled absently at a little girl's depiction of a spawling, yellow sun, beaming from the wall of the cellblock. Summer was settling; the plants were thriving. Hershel was out tending them now, and Sasha was feeding the pigs. Picturesque, really. The scattered undead beyond the metal links damped the effect, slightly.

"Look, look, this is me, and Lizzie, and our daddy," A blonde girl - Mika - pointed. "Except he came out a bit wonky." She frowned. "I want to draw my mommy, too, but I don't know what an angel looks like. Is that bad?"

"No, it's not bad, honey," Carol knelt down on the sun-warmed ground. She was still inches above most of them. "She looks exactly how you remember her."

"Okay," Mika picked up her chalk again and filled in a new stick-figure, beside what Carol assumed was her father. "Do you know any angels?"

That caught her off guard. She hesitated, stood up, forcing that feeling that struck hard at the thought of her daughter down, down into her stomach, where at least she could work it into a knot and move around it, until it settled back in to its place. What were you meant to say? That was when, thank heavens, he called out to her, strolling up the gravel path from the gate, crossbow slung across his arm, pack drooping off one shoulder, as if on cue, as if he'd heard her thoughts. "What we got over here? Art?"

Carol took a few steps back from Mika to meet him. "Good run?"

"Never took you for no Picanto," He muttered, and he looked so smug, so content, since everything, that every joke, each a little funnier than the last, dissolved from her mind.

She just nodded. "I think you mean Picasso,"

"Whatever, that too," He muttered. "Run was good. Found a bunch of medical sh -" Carol gave him a look, and he registered the small herd of children giggling and scrawling half-decipherable masterpieces across the walls. "Supplies at this store." He paused. "Got ya this," His voice was overly nochalant, and he seemed to realize a few moments after the words had fallen that he hadn't actually given her this. After rummaging in his pack, head forcibly down, he withdrew a thin, battered book, and tossed it at her. She didn't catch it.

Her reflexes had never been the best. Carol felt a smile posessing her features as she retrieved the book from the ground. "Pride and Prejudice?"

Daryl shrugged, aggressively relaxed. "Saw it on the floor, remembered you said somethin' about likin' it once. Thought you might want a copy."

"I don't remember our long talks about literature," Carol did, actually, in a way; they'd started talking about everything. The matter had probably come up at some point. Still, that he'd chosen to keep that particular detail with him was strangely flattering. People kept giving her stuff from runs. She'd return the favour next time she went out; try to find some of that soup he liked. "Really, thank you,"

"Ain't a problem," As Daryl was about to go off, Mika ran back up to her, tugging her sleeve tentatively. "Looks like you got a proper artist to attend to. See ya later?"

"Just a second, Mika," Carol promised.

Mika cut her off before she could finish saying goodbye. "Could you come help us, please? We're trying to draw everyone at the prison. Mr Dixon can help too if he wants." Carol glanced at Daryl, amused, trying to gauge whatever reaction he had. He looked from the kids to her and back, and nodded in acceptance.

"I'll help you for sure," He was following the child's lead over to their pictures, with a significantly triumphant look Carol's way, as if challenging her artistic superiority. She folded her arms and joined them, still holding the book. "What've we got here?"

"We want to draw everyone," A little girl, Molly, explained, in tones extremely serious, as if chalking messy portraits on the side of a building was the most important mission of her life. "But we can't remember them all, and the boys won't help, cause they're just drawing silly stuff, and we can't do it all by ourselves."

"Right," Carol surveyed the situation. They'd all drawn themselves, of course; the circle with the purple stripe near the top and the black lines coming off it was possibly Michonne and her bandana, the yellow-ponytailed figure with a lump in a blanket must have been Beth, holding baby Judith - both of whom were big hits amongst the kids. As she went along the line of drawings, Carol began to understand them more and more easily. There was Hershel, with the white scribble beard, and Carl in his hat. "I think we can do this,"

"Hell yeah we can," Daryl agreed, holding up his grimy palm for the kids to squabble over high-fiving with small fists. "Bet I can draw better than Carol," He grinned slightly. Bastard. He knew children lapped that stuff up.

"Oh, really? Bet you can't," Carol replied, the golden light of the afternoon sun, blazing languidly on through scars of cloud warm on her skin, picking up a stick of chalk, making a more simple, rudimentary version of Rick. The kids had gone nuts, grinning and siding with either her or Daryl - traitors - and asking, what do you bet, what do you bet?

"Tell ya what," Daryl decided, haphazardly scrawling eyes and hair on his picture of - Glenn? Carol couldn't quite make it out, focusing more on marking a sheriff's badge on the chalk-Rick's chest. "I bet my next run that my drawing's better than hers,"

Like Daryl Dixon didn't enjoy going off on supply runs. "Yeah, and you lot get to decide, how does that sound?" Carol offered. Soprano squealing and childish cheers. "When we're all done, you go stand with the person you think did better."

"You're on, lady," Daryl shot.

"You, are distracting me from my masterpiece," Carol complained. "Pookie." He caught her eye across the gaggle of enthralled children, and there was an apologetic amusement lingering in his gaze. Who would have known. Daryl Dixon; archer, hunter, and art assistant to the under-tens. It was sweet, really, she thought, moving on to draw Tyreese beside Lizzie's chalk depiction of Sasha, and marvelling at just how far he'd come. Sophia would have liked this.

"Whoa," Carol looked up sharply, detecting the hint of something in his tone. "Who's that?" He was talking to Mika. Her gaze soon found the source of Daryl's query; although the question in itself was unnecessary. Mika's latest work, beside a tangle of stick limbs that had to be Glenn and Maggie hugging, a dark haired stick figure with what Carol imagined was a crossbow at the end of one chalk-line arm held hands with another stick figure, dots of blue chalk for eyes, a knife in its free hand, no doubt meant to be her.

"That's you two," Molly piped up, pointing. "Mika said I should draw everyone individual, but I already drew Glenn and Maggie hugging, so I said I might as well draw you together."

"I think what Mr Dixon means is, why are we holding hands?" Carol ammended. Children were adorable.

"Cause you do that a lot," Molly answered, like it was obvious. Did they? Carol tried to think, tried not to laugh when Daryl caught her eye. If either of them tripped, they helped the other up, but everyone did that. She supposed, for moments they held hands, for support - but not a lot. Did they? "And thats what people who love each other do,"

The scarlet shade colouring Daryl's face served to make the whole thing more funny, and more embarassing. She wanted to laugh, but her face was prickling at the same time. "Molly, sweetie, Daryl and I aren't - a couple,"

"Yes you are!" Molly cried indignantly.

"You laugh together all the time," Mika insisted. "And you hug, which is something, cause Mr Dixon doesn't hug people really. And you do hold hands and you're always next to each other and talking and when Beth sings you both look at the other one and Mr Dixon gave you the old-timey romancey book! And whenever you're sad you go to each other and I think you look like a couple and you should get married like Glenn and Maggie."

Blatantly spoken like that, well... Why was it so hard to meet Daryl's eye now? "He gave you a flower the other day." Lizzie stated. "You just called him pookie." That wasn't like that though, really; he'd found a cherokee rose, that was special to them, he had to share it. And... Her brain had stopped working.

"Yeah, well," Daryl muttered, eyes on the concrete. "I think Carol won the drawing competition."

Later, he'd apologise for hurrying off after that. Later, they'd come to understand the wisdom of children.


	9. Then

**Crossbows, Choice and Cherokee Roses**

**A/N ~** I'm not even going to pretend there's any plot here, this is just fluff. Just one big long fluffy conversation. Literally nothing happens. I seriously considered naming it Big Blue Bambi Eyes. That's how pointless and fluffy this one shot is.

**When This Was Then**

[ _Nostalgia and imagination aren't always what they're cracked up to be, and sometimes they're better. Daryl thinks she's beautiful._ Pre-4x1.]

"I miss fry ups. Ain't something I thought I'd ever say, but I miss 'em. Greasy sausages and egg and those hash things you got with 'em."

"I miss a warm bath after a long day."

"I miss taco trucks, rubbery cheese an' hot peppers."

"I miss beds that are a little above prison-quality."

"Gravy."

"Libraries and cheesy movies."

"PBJ."

"Smell of just-cut grass."

"Toast."

"Ok, Daryl, all you're saying is food," Carol grinned, giving him a look as he shifted back against the wall from his seat at the head of the bed in his cell; she was sitting at the foot, fiddling with his poncho, carelessly thrown across the matress, with a look that made him feel like she was teasing him. Felt like a Saturday. Nobody was keeping track of days anymore, but Daryl always figured the feeling really made it. He never routinely worked or religiously went to school, but there were days that eased into themselves, flowing into a ceaseless, sunlit span of time that required no effort to inhabit. Glenn and Maggie volunteered to go on a run into town, one of the Woodbury guys, some ex-chef, was trying to scrape together a decent meal for tonight out of the bland stock they had, and the kids had started some twice-damned game that involved a lot of running and shouting. It was kinda nice, in a way.

"So?" He smiled. "I grew up on squirrels I shot and microwave ready meals. If I'd have known the world was gonna end I would have become a better cook before I lost the chance."

"Right," Carol allowed, big blue Bambi eyes trained on him. "Ok, turn it around. What don't you miss about the old world?"

Daryl considered. A lot - a hell of a lot. Stuff he wanted to tell her, stuff he already had, stuff she just seemed to know about, like he did her. But he didn't want to weigh their endless afternoon down. That was for another time. "Social services on my ass, trying ta hook me up with a 'real job'."

She gave an embryonic laugh. "Small talk about the weather."

"Nobody ever talked ta me about the weather, small or big." Daryl liked it when she got talking so lightly, so freely. Sometimes it seemed like she was from a whole other world, although it always seemed like they were from the exact same place.

"Seriously?" Carol raised her eyebrows slightly. "You've never had an awkward conversation about the temperature?"

"Never."

"It's warm today," She generalized, glancing around. "This is Atlanta. We're meant to have a good summer. Bit of rain, though. At least the plants'll be happy."

"You're right, that's awful." Daryl grinned. "Don't ever do that again." He paused, searching. "I don't miss kitchen appliances breakin' every two minutes."

"I don't miss seeing bills come through the door."

"Ain't that the truth." He never really paid bills. Seemed like a waste of time, till they cut off the electricity. "I don't miss guys in suits thinkin' they're better than everyone."

"Which is why I don't miss high school reunions."

"Um, hey," Sasha, at the gaping entrance to Daryl's cell. "Charlie said he'll be done with dinner soon. He wants to know how many he's serving for. You two in?" Daryl glanced across at Carol, checking with her, almost, and shrugged.

"Why not?"

"Cool." Sasha nodded awkwardly, with a questioning quick look inside the cell, before she turned to continue the census on post apocalyptic cookery. Daryl turned back to Carol, arms cushioning the back of his head. He wondered what the guy had managed to dish up out of beans, flour, old cereal and more beans. That was all Daryl saw, anyway. Everything they ate came out of a tin now.

"You go." Carol shot, folding the poncho and moving it aside.

Daryl just stared at her. "The hell were you doing at a high school reunion? I thought they were only real on TV."

"They're worse in real life, trust me." Her eyes flickered downwards for a moment, a higher octave of uncertainty singing through her face. He was sure that he'd have missed it if he wasn't watching so carefully. The hesitation trailed into her next sentence. "I met Ed in high school."

"Oh," Oh, Dixon, is that all you got? Oh? Daryl cursed himself inwardly, discomfort prickling hot in his skull and gut, searching a blank page for some way to reply to that. He was so used to it being so natural with her, he could help but allow what naturally got out of his throat. "High school?"

Carol nodded lightly. "Senior year. To be honest, I think I only agreed to the first date because my friends told me to. Even then I wasn't really sure." Daryl never dated. He never had the kind of friends she meant. He never really went to school all that much either, not if he didn't feel like it.

"Why'd ya do it then?" He couldn't help it; he was curious. He liked hearing her talk about her life. Nothing ever felt like prying when it was with Carol. "Go on the date,"

"Because. He was… sweet. At first, and he was interested. He left chocolates in my locker once. My friends thought that was adorable." She paused. "I was flattered that he liked me, but didn't really know what I was doing to be honest. I never really had guys lining up, if you know what I mean."

Daryl didn't. "The hell not?" He hadn't taken school seriously; it was just a place to hide out when his dad was in a mood, or any of Merle's worthless dealers came knocking. He didn't spend much time around normal peers, and he couldn't understand how someone like Carol, someone so kind and strong and smart who never judged anyone wouldn't be the most popular person.

"I'm not saying I wasn't sociable, I had lot of friends. I was just a little quiet. I was the one people came to for advice about other people -" She grinned. "Why they thought I'd be any help, I don't know."

Daryl was still too hung up on this information to process the link between his mind and his mouth. "But you're beautiful,"

Idiot. There he went, probably making her uncomfortable. He forced himself to calm down, awkwardly embarassed, staring into the sheets on the prison bed beneath his feet. He didn't have to say that. That really wasn't necessary. Relevent, by a stretch, but not needed. Daryl racked his brains for a change of topic but the only thing that jumped to mind was that he had never told a woman that she was beautiful before. Entirely unhelpful. He could almost hear Merle having a great time taking the piss out of him.

"So you think I'm beautiful, now?" Daryl made himself look up, mind scalding, and meeting her baffled eyes. There was a slight pink tinge to her face.

"Yeah, so?" Daryl muttered defensively. The strident silence that ensued was both thick and fuzzy, and painfully aware of itself.

Carol's gaze found her lap again, and she sook her head slightly. Daryl was endlessly thankful that she shattered the quiet for him. "Nothing. Thank you." In her split-second pause, in the space she recovered her feather-heavy humour, Daryl realized she probably hadn't been called that in a long while, with the shitbag and the end if the world and everything. "You're not so hard on the eyes yourself."

They were both grateful when Glenn, just back from his run, stopped by to let them know they were late for the big wasteful apocalyptic-gourmet dinner. Daryl didn't know why his brain jumped immediately to what Sasha had said that they weren't interrupted when Woodbury Cook finished. In an attempt to regain some shred of ease and dignity, he told her, as they walked to dinner, "If I'd 'a gone to high school with ya, it would have been more fun. And I'd have made you trust your own instincts."

Carol supressed a smile. "Please, if you were in high school with me, we wouldn't have exchanged a word in the hallway."

"No, we'd have been friends. BFFs for life or some shit," She laughed, sitting down outside, where David had put up some benches, and Hershel had decided they should make use of the premature summer. Daryl frowned, taking the seat opposite her. "What?"

She smiled again. "Nothing. It's just - it's funny. Hearing you talk like that. About dates and things."

Daryl nodded. "And for the record, I would have asked you out if we'd been in high school together."

"Ok, you're cute."

"Stop," Daryl smiled. Whatever that guy had cooked up, it didn't smell half bad.


	10. Outlines Fading

**Crossbows, Choice and Cherokee Roses**

**A/N ~** I was toying with this angsty headcanon for a while. And then the feels struck and I NEEDED TO GET THE IDEA OUT OF MY SYSTEM BECAUSE yes I fangirl over my own thoughts. This is just angsty fluff tbh. I don't know at what length a drabble becomes a one-shot but I may have walked the line. A oabble. A drabot.

**Outlines Fading**

[ _Daryl looks for her when she's gone. Nobody knows. He knows that it's not going to amount to anything. But he'd feel useless if he didn't. Traitorous._ Spoilers for season 4.]

He could hear the prison falling asleep, to the sound of the prison falling asleep.

His crossbow's ready, alert against his bed, his jacket and boots already on, with his live stare stubbornly fixated on the ceiling in the dark. There was never a decision to do this. No revelation, no choice. It just happened. The first night, he couldn't sleep. He'd only meant to go out into the yard, or shoot some walkers by the fence. Somehow it had just turned into this. He knew he wouldn't find her. But he couldn't just sit around, waiting for her ghost-like outline to materialize, or fade away. He couldn't be that powerless. He couldn't betray her like that.

He'd slipped silently into a kind of rhythm, an involuntary routine. A muscle memory wristwatch; he could tell when most of them were asleep. And it wasn't a chore, nor a desperation, although a hint of the latter settled like dust on him when he wasn't careful enough to focus on other things. It was something he had to do. Clockwork.

Slinging his crossbow over his shoulder, a knife and a last-resort gun into his belt, Daryl left his cell and his cell block quietly. He never used the main gate, too much fuss. Under the cover of a smothering midnight, too black beneath the fainting constellations, Daryl ducked through one of the wire-wound holes in the fence, closing it up agin behind him, skewering a lonely curious biter in the skull with his knife.

He followed the road into town, a muffled disturbance in the uncanny desolation of a deserted world. It was almost peaceful, going like this, except for the twisting truth of uncertainty, uncomfortable in his gut, chest. That he didn't know where she was, what she was doing. If she was safe, if she'd found new people who would never really know her. Whether she was thinking about him, too.

There were houses lining the street now, and he checked every one of them. Every one. Sometimes he found emptiness, bloodstained photographs curling at the edges, and sometimes he found walkers, but he left them alone. He killed when he was angry, the nights he hated Rick and he hated everyone else who let it happen and he hated the world and he fucking hated himself for not being there, not being able to find her. It wasn't one of those nights. Tonight, he was just... Alone.

It had felt that way, since she'd been gone. It wasn't like he didn't have friends. Rick was his brother, and Beth was sweet and Glenn could always talk. It was more that he didn't have her. Someone who got it like she did. Someone so perfectly in tune with the rhythm of him, that he didn't even have to try, although she made him want to. Someone he could talk to so easily, who had blue eyes and a quiet kind of storm, someone with more steel in her than anyone he'd ever met, with a pretty smile. Fuck.

He levelled his crossbow at the distance in the road and watched the bolt smash into the walkers' skull. When he yanked it out, the sluggish blood spattered. It always seemed like shorter than it was, him out, looking. He always headed back with a reluctant lead heart as the first fingers of dawn began to spray through the cracks of a ruined skyline, and the birds began to call. He never wanted to.

He was back at the prison before anybody was up, as usual. As usual, that razored thread tugged at him, skin and soul, when he passed her cell, and it seemed to him that the dust was moving in too quickly. Unlike usual, he couldn't force himself to pass it. He only stepped inside for a minute, breathing more cacophonous than his heartbeat, because any longer would have been too hard. Her prescence still lingered there. He wished it would stop pestering him as much as he wanted never to stop feeling the ache of her abscence - never to forget the impact of her not being there. The pillow still smelled of her, faintly. One day soon, that would disappear.

The day stretched out across the survivors' sanctuary, and Daryl Dixon washed the blood off his knife, splashed his face awake and prepared himself for a new, offbeat existence that did not contain Carol Peletier.

He tried to not think about her during the day.

The night was the playground of his memories.


	11. Dumbass Candy Hearts

**Crossbows, Choice and Cherokee Roses**

**A/N ~ **Excuse the title. IT'S FEBRUARY! You know what that means? TIME TO WRITE VALENTINES DAY FLUFF ABOUT MY OTP! Happy Caryltines day! Once more, if you ask me when or where this is set and how they got to this moment I will run away.

#HappyCaryltinesDay #imayhaveathingaboutcarolwearingdarylsclothes #darylsfirstvalentines #igoabitoverboarddescribingcarolseyes #butcarolseyes #mmbcanihavethempls

**Dumbass Candy Hearts**

**[ **_There comes a time when you stop caring about what's official and more about what you feel is. It could well have been Valentines Day._ Very Post-5A.]

"If you had to guess," Carol pressed. Somehow they'd gotten onto the topic of what day it was, freezing their asses off on a run. Although Carol insisted the days were drawing on longer, Daryl didn't notice any difference. The raw blue sky had been scoured of cloud and warmth both, the air sharpened, the soil frozen.

"January, February maybe," Daryl shrugged, squinting in the harsh glare of the cool winter sun, sifting in eye-searing flashes through the leafless trees lining the weed-ridden pavement. "It's cold, is what it is,"

"Feels like a Thursday," She replied, motioning toward one of the copy-and-paste redbrick houses. Daryl followed her down the scraggly garden path, breathing silver mist, and he leaned past her to go for the doorknob. He didn't realize he'd done that until he caught the thankful query in her bright eyes, and he shrugged.

"Might be a walker or somthin' in there," Daryl levelled his crossbow. "If it opens, I wanna go first,"

"I can take care of myself," There was a small smile on her face, though.

"I know," Daryl nodded. Hell, he knew that more than anyone. They all should; it wasn't just herself she was taking care of but everyone. The grenade at the CDC, a thousand years ago. Doing what she had to when the sickness struck. Taking care of Judy. Terminus. Terminus; with a gun and a bottle rocket and no help at all. She was a goddamn superhero if there ever was one, time after time. "Just rather me get bit than you," He barely had time to hope that it didn't sound as serious and shit as it was. And anyway, if there were people alive in there (they were damn reckless having the door unlocked) they'd be more inclined to get angry with the first weapon-weilding intruder to barge in.

"Well, I wouldn't," Carol replied indignantly; when Daryl tried the doorknob and it opened, and as an unspoken compromise they went in together.

Nothing alive, and nothing dead either. He heard her shut the door behind them. Whoever had lived here appeared to have vacated in a hurry; one of the kitchen cupboards across the open-plan room was ajar, promising-looking packages spilling out onto the counter, a half-full bag of clothes slumped on the tiled floor. Daryl went to paw through that imediately; it was freezing, and he was sure it wasn't thawing out anytime soon. The first thing on all their minds was warm clothing. "Hey," Daryl nodded, placing his crossbow gently on the floor beside him in order to retrieve a thick, worn-looking jumper, holding it up. "My size," It looked warmer than the sweat-dirt-blood stained number he was currently sporting beneath his jacket. Daryl braced himself and made the switch quickly; the stone-cold air sliced at his thin shirt and he hastened to get the thing on, and his jacket. "Carol -" Daryl turned around, crossbow and the old sweater in his hands. She was rootling through the kitchen cupboards.

"Look what I found," She was smiling, with a dusty bottle of red wine with a fancy french name in her hand. She spoke the same time that he held out the old jumper to her with a thoughtless 'here'.

Carol glanced from the jumper to Daryl and back, putting the wine bottle to rest on the kitchen counter. "I got a new sweater," his gaze flickered downwards. "Just thought maybe, if you were cold -" Nice. Offer a girl a gross sweaty bloody old jumper.

She took it. "Thank you."

"Now," He smiled, eager to change the subject. "'Bout that wine,"

"I thought we could take it back, so everyone could have a bit, celebrating that we're still alive or something." He peered behind her; there was another bottle in there.

"Or," He wove around her to grab at it, "We could live like it's our last day on earth, which it might well be, drink this one now and celebrate with the rest some other time." Where did that come from? They needed to be alert; they had a job to do. Job they did nearly every day. And she was right - of course she was right - they were still alive. That was something worth celebrating.

"Daryl, are you trying to get me drunk?"

"C'mon,"

A small smile crossed her features. "Fine," She paused. "I'll just finish up here -" Carol frowed and reached up onto a higher shelf, on her toes, coming up with something Daryl vaguely recognized. "Well, look at that," The smile was back, which made Daryl weirdly happy. "Maybe that's the universe showing us it is February," She tossed the thing at him, the small wrapped tube of dumbass candy hearts. "Might be Valentines Day and we'd never even know,"

"Someone should tell Glenn and Maggie," Daryl muttered absently, turning the sweets over in his grimy fingers. Daryl always hated Valentines day. He never got it, really. It was just some manufactured shit designed for the company who made those stupid candy hearts to make extra cash. Every Valentines, Merle always brought home some woman, half of whom Daryl was sure were hookers, but that was nothing out of the ordinary. Goddamn couples everywhere. So annoying.

But Carol was right; it did feel like Valentines Day, and for the first time, it didn't feel bad. Felt right. Like this was how Valentines was supposed to be - which was bullshit. The world was dead and they were just... Leaning on each other instead of the earth beneath their feet. But in a way, that's why they were all so close now, particularly her. He'd never been close to anyone before, like this.

It was snowing, Daryl realized all of a sudden, fat flakes of white descending past the window. Snow was annoying; it was wet, and cold, and it got in the way. But now he could see that snow was pretty-looking, too. He opened the door, to look properly; it was just as cold inside as it was outside. He didn't realize that he'd sat down on the doorstep with his boots in the fine dusting of snow until Carol sat down beside him. "How long do you think it'll last?" She'd come up behind him, joining him in the doorway without any questioons and offering him a pink mug with a chipped handle, full of wine.

"We couldn't'a just drank from the bottle?" Daryl smiled, taking a sip.

"Not in the civilised world."

He was about to point out that they weren't in the civilised world anymore, before he realized she was being ironic. Snow was a gentle kind of weather. Soft bone flecks fainting into a carpet-skinny coat stretched across the frozen-hard ground. The wind had stilled, a silent death, a bully trio of chill and chance and snowflakes had smote the flowers (that were possibly uncut weeds; Daryl didn't know much about flowers, unless you could eat them) lining a once-tidy garden into submission. Well; tried. Their powder-topped heads, though bent, didn't cower for too long, flecks of colour splashed stark beneath the snow. He looked over at Carol, sipping wine from a cracked cup, with snowflakes caught, melting in her hair. Somebody had turned the colours of the world down an octave; washed out frost, a sky the colour of cloth that had been white a long time ago. Defleshed black branches tore at the air with deprived twigs, like skeletons standing alert on a sickly skyline. And in that moment, the world was suddenly very pale, and her eyes were suddenly very blue, and Daryl realized he was still holding the love heart sweets.

"Here," He unwound the wrapping and offered her the one on top. Those things had so many preservatives in it couldn't hurt. She took it and he took the next one. It said holding hands, but that wasn't the reason Daryl reached out to take her hand. Later, he'd tell her he was trying to warm her up, but she was already wearing his old jumper. It wasn't because it was possible-feels-like-it Valentines Day either. It was because he didn't want to not anymore. The wine was a welcome luxury, sublime in his throat.

He realized then that the doorway was not very wide, and he could feel the warmth from her body against his. She was prettier than she gave herself credit for, really, and it was times like this he realized it the most. The little quiet moments when he wasn't too distracted by keeping walkers the fuck away from her, or marvelling over how badass she was, how far they'd brought each other. He was too caught up in studying the cerulean blue of her eyes; the hue kind of shifted every now and again, brighter here, then more intense an azure there - to even anticipate what would happen next before he could feel her lips against his, and all that blood in his body shot up to his head, dizzyingly. He didn't know who kissed who first. He hoped he wasn't blushing. He didn't care. He'd waited too long. The kiss was too short, too - Daryl just started, enmeshed in his own confusing, confusing feelings when they broke apart.

"Happy maybe Valentines day," Carol told him quietly.

"Yeah," Daryl stammered, after gathering his pulse and his mind and everything in between. His thoughts were crashing into one another before they even fully formed. Daryl met her eyes and felt that familiar sensation of comfort, like frost melting away before the dawn, only melting in. She was her. That was it. He smiled with his whole soul. "Don't call it that. I never liked Valentines day. 'N every day I'm with you's special anyway."

He was sure he was blushing. Carol was smiling into her scarf, as the snow fell, with her cheeks pink. He wasn't alone.

Valentines day. Ha.

If this was what it felt like, maybe he could get on board with it.

**A/N ~** Shameless cheese is all I've written lately, so the next one will probably be darker or angstier.


End file.
